Email-Gate: Did Clinton Knowingly Violate Eight Federal Laws?

James Madison once said: “The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.” Clearly, Clinton didn’t get the message.

Despite bearing the name “Clinton” the former Secretary of State achieved her obscure power through a series of debacles that include presidential runs, her time as a U.S. Senator, and the infidelity of her husband, Bill.

However, no matter one’s societal status or last name, especially for Hillary in this case, no American citizen is exempt from the rule of law. Even agency executives who handle classified information are not exempt. With that, even though no indictment has been spurred by the probes into Secretary Clinton’s email fiasco, it is definitively likely that she violated federal secrecy laws.

Clinton claims “Email-gate” it a “vast right wing conspiracy,” not an abuse of power and of her position at the State Department.

Though relentless in her presidential bid, Clinton has opened herself to unwanted attention, and investigation, because of personal mistakes for which she is solely responsible. No “vast right-wing conspiracy” can replace federal law.

One such law is 18 United States Code 1924: Did Clinton knowingly and willingly mishandle classified information?

“Whoever, being an officer, employee, contractor, or consultant of the United States, and, by virtue of his [or her] office, employment, position, or contract, becomes possessed of documents or materials containing classified information of the United States, knowingly removes such documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location shall be fined under this title or imprisoned…”

The punishment for committing this crime is one year in federal penitentiary and a fine.

Kenneth Bergquist, a former Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Department of Justice under Reagan, identified these laws in The Daily Caller. Bergquist indicates that there are 8 laws (including 18 USC 1924) Hillary may have violated, exposing the degrees of these violations, if she’s indicted

The Washington Examinerreported that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) confirmed that a criminal probe into her personal email server use was acknowledged. Though this observation was reported in October of 2015, the general counsel of the FBI filed a letter in a federal court confirming the existence of the probe to the media via a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch.

Twenty-two of the hundreds of emails recently released by the State Department were withheld and deemed “top secret” – so secret that a full redaction is risky.

Yet, Clinton had the audacity to assert that she knew nothing of about any classified information on her private email server.

At the most recent MSNBC Democratic townhall debate, Clinton outright lied by stating, “I never sent or received any classified material.”

Kind of like her husband Bill claiming, “I did not have sex with that woman.”

The official MSNBC transcript reads:

TODD: All right, Madam Secretary, there is an open — there is an open FBI investigation into this matter about how you may have handled classified material. Are you 100 percent confident that nothing is going to come of this FBI investigation?

CLINTON: I am 100 percent confident. This is a security review that was requested. It is being carried out. It will be resolved. But I have to add if there’s going to be a security review about me, there’s going to have to be security reviews about a lot of other people, including Republican office holders, because we’ve got this absurd situation of retroactive classifications…

The woman is playing the media, yes, and despite her education and long history of political scandals, she’s most likely calculated the costs—and risks. Perhaps though she only calculated the costs for her political career, not her personal freedom.

While Clinton may be calculating the costs associated with these crimes and her political future, she reveals her lack of concern for the future safety of America. Through all of this, Clinton has projected herself as a self-righteous, self-interested, want-to-be despot of a leader. If she cared so much about the American people, why has she taken the position she has on “national security” risks?

And if she isn’t lying, as she claims, do Americans really want a leader who doesn’t know what information is classified and whether or not it is on her email server?

McGrady’s work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Drudge Report, The Denver Post, and several other publications. Follow him on Twitter (@MikeMcGrady2).

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